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An anonymous reader writes: Dave Munson was thinking about moving, and had a couple broad requirements for a new home: it must be affordable, and its neighborhood must be walkable. Price is easy to chart, but how do you compare the walkability of hundreds of cities? Simple: use math. A website called Walk Score provides rough walkability ratings, but doesn't tell you much about affordability. Munson downloaded the data that went into a city's Walk Score, weighted the relevant variables, and mapped the top results. Then he looked for overlap with the map of areas in his price range. He says, "Capitol Hill, Seattle led the pack. To be honest, I was expecting something a smaller, affordable Midwest town or something, but it the highest scoring areas were usually just outside of major downtowns. Other top areas included Cambridge and Somerville outside of Boston, and the South End in Boston; Columbia Heights, Washington, DC; The Mission District, Lower Haight, and Russian Hill, San Francisco; Midtown, Atlanta; Greenwood, Dyker Heights, Kensington, and Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn; Graduate Hospital in Philadelphia, where we used to live; Lake View, Chicago; and Five Points, Denver."

I'm not so sure about that. I lived in Midtown for 3 years without a car. Grocery store was 4 blocks away, plenty of restaurants within walking distance including a great pub right across the street from me. The Atlanta Symphony, High Museum of Art, Shakespeare Tavern, and Piedmont Park were all within easy walking distance, and if I was willing to walk a bit further Centennial Park and Downtown Atlanta were only about half an hour walk. If I wanted to go further afield, there were two Marta stations within 3 blocks of me.

Compared to other places I've lived (Southern California, New Jersey, Far suburbs of Chicago), Midtown Atlanta was by far the most walkable and livable without a car.

I lived in Atlanta many years ago. Problem with "walkability" wasn't the distances from groceries/restaurants/etc, it was temperature during the summer months. Walking four blocks with groceries at 85+F (30C) would not be fun after a few weeks....

Problem with "walkability" wasn't the distances from groceries/restaurants/etc, it was temperature during the summer months. Walking four blocks with groceries at 85+F (30C) would not be fun after a few weeks....

Body temperature is 99F degrees, so 85 is nice and cool... You don't even need to sweat.

Humans were designed for desert life, so it's something you can easily get used-to in short order, if you are willing to dress properly, aren't obese and don't have other medical conditions. Taking some cold wa

Nice reference to persistence hunting. Wolves, in the rare instances where they still have territory free of the blight that is the hairless monkeys, are notoriously successful using this method of prey exhaustion. Humans fare even better, having the only brain in nature (I'm aware of) that engineers the carrying of water during the hunt.

For many, many modern humans, the daily struggle to acquire sustenance is a tad less rigorous.

Walkability (what a focking twat word) becomes a concern in urban areas, as

The comment that started this chain did not mention humidity, so that is where the opprobrium should lie. Those of us who are aware that Atlanta has very high humidity understand that is the real issue.

No way 85 is lovely weather even with humidity, still goof for a stroll, now when it cracks 110, that's hot. You can even tell whether or not it is humid at 110, a cold drink of what ever description is delightful and a short stroll at that temperature really does make you appreciate of air conditioning. Of course when it comes to grocery shopping and walk ability you have completely the wrong idea, no weekly shopping trip, instead daily shopping trips, buying today what you will be cooking and eating toda

The comment that started this chain did not mention humidity, so that is where the opprobrium should lie

No -- the "opprobrium should lie" with idiot meterologists who teach us to quote temperature numbers as if they had a good correlation with comfort level for humans.

Temperatures are useful in some laboratory situations, but they're pretty useless alone for humans. At a minimum, we generally want to take the humidity into account, since the amount of moisture in the air will determine: (1) how fast sweat will evaporate from our bodies, and (2) how much heat is directly transferred to/from our bodies by co

I do not recall where I learned this at but it seems to be generally true: The human body generates as much heat as it loses when the air temperature is 70F or 21C. For some people, it is a bit higher, for others, it is a bit lower, but those numbers are roughly true for everyone.

At 85F, your body needs to work to cool itself. How much it needs to cool itself depends on the energy density of the surrounding air. This is largely dominated by humidity. The more water that is in the air, the greater the energy

Pretty sure there aren't many people who agree with you that 85 degrees is nice cool walking weather......if you're thinking about bringing cool water with you, then it's not 'nice and cool'. Also, if the thing that comes to mind is Death Valley ultramarathons, that's an indication that it might not be 'nice and cool.'

Anyone and everyone that has walked in much hotter temperatures, surely would.

It's making blanket statements like this that is making you sound like an idiot. I know very few people that consider 85F to be a comfortable temperature, let along "nice and cool."

The average person finds their comfort range for room temperature to be in the low- to mid-70s; and when exerting oneself (even to a small extent), the comfortable temperature will generally be lower than that. While I'm sure there are some people that prefer temperatures as high as 85 F, they are certainly outside the norm.

Walking even 2 blocks in a thunderstorm can get you absolutly soaked, even if you're wearing a coat.

These days I walk to work 99% of the time unless its raining. It takes about 20 minutes, and 17 minutes to walk homeI thin the distance is about a mile. Leaving work I can use another door which is on the near side of the building.

I don't mind walking if its snowing, snow doesn't really get you wet, and of course you can wear a snow suit.It generally doesn't get that cold while it is snowing. Its when it clears up afterward that the temperature drops below 0F and thats ok if the wind is behind you.
I wouldn't want to ride a bike on snow or ice though.

I live in a city suburb. Actually... probably strike the "suburb" bit.

Grocery store is on the same block.Major hospital with world-leading research facilities (CAT scanners, MRI, electron microscopes, portable defibrillators, you're welcome) is a mile and a half away.Nearest museum is a mile away.Nearest (chain) restaurant is 3/4 mile away.Nearest cineplex is a mile away.Nearest bowling alley is next door to the cineplex.Nearest (internationally renowned as in "Torville and Dean, the 2012/13/14 Challenge Cu

How 'bout them bunny etters, ain't they hicks?Snarfin' them some bunny way out in the sticks.Shootin' them cottontail, snarin' them haresJumpin' them a jackrabbit, nothing compares!How 'bout them hare flushers, ain't they snappy?Leapin' lepus in the boonies sure makes 'em happy!Them hugger-mugger hare raisers way down Southstickin' yummy Hasenpfeffer in they mouth.How to be a hare-gitter no way to duck it,Git yerself a hare, stew it and suck it!

To be honest, I was expecting something a smaller, affordable Midwest town or something

Rural people have much more need for a car than city people. Back in the early 80's I lived here [google.com.au], the town has been a ghost town since the mill closed down in the mid-80's, it's not even marked on google maps anymore. Sure I could walk out the front door and be at work, but as the AC/DC song goes, "it's a long way to the shop, if you wanna sausage roll"

His criteria for "affordable" was "people living there on average make about the same amount of money that I do, so I can probably live there on my income."

Then he should also look for recent rapid price increases. People may be living in houses that they bought years ago, but could no longer afford if they were buying at today's prices. This doubly true in California, where long term owners even pay far less in property taxes than recent buyers living in identical houses.

Also, if he wants to walk, then is likely to be a liberal [nypost.com].

Texas doesn't have a state income tax. As such we pay for ours in the form of high property taxes. For the Houston are and surrounding (Katy), taxes got hiked 15% in one year for some people. So whether you've owned the house for 20 years (and paid off) or 1, the taxes alone could outstrip what you make a year, thus forcing you to relocate or get a better paying job. In theory, it's a self correcting system. You can't have lower income people not afford to live near work that's viable to being able to live

It's a commonly held American myth that living in a "real city" magically eliminates the daily commute. It does not. It just makes the commute different. It will likely be just as long and might even be even more miserable.

Being jam packed into some subway or bus isn't a real improvement. This is even with giving mass transit the best possible advantages in the comparison (good European systems versus nightmarish American ones).

As a Mustachian I can tell you that this is the myth. It's not just choosing to live downtown but choosing to live close to work. I used to drive 30 miles through horrible traffic which took 1.5 hours. Now I moved to within a 5 mile radius of WinCo (groceries), Costco, Home Depot, the library, and, most important of all, work. I bike 3 miles in less time than it would take me to go by car.

And most of the areas listed in the article are too expensive for mere mortals

And the way to buy a home is to ask how are the schools? Good school districts will keep value long after walk ability and other fads wear out. Problem with cities is too much rentals. Too easy for people to flee once their lifestyle changes

Walking is only a 'fad' for suburbanites who don't understand you shouldn't need a car to go to the store. City dwellers are increasingly being found to be fitter than suburbanites because they walk more.

when the millenials start to have kids instead of partying all the time and the kids go to school and they realize their precious snowflake is going to school with kids who bring in guns and curse and are dummer than farm animals and are bussed in from the bad city neighborhoods because of diversity or because the projects are two blocks away then,

the millenials will forget all this walkability and carbon footprint nonsense and move out to places with good schools where precious snowflake who reads 2-3 grades above the average kid in the USA won't be in the same class as the dumb shits who barely know the alphabet in first grade. in the 80's when the baby boomers got tired of their camaros it was called White Flight and the cities with all their rentals became ghost towns. Today it's going to be the same except for more ethnicities doing it

give it another 5-10 years and it will happen. the chicks will wake one day and hear their biological clock ticking louder than ever and dump all the man kids who do nothing but party

In downtown Toronto (city is about 2.5 million, metro around 5.6 million), there are a huge numbers of families and schools. The students there are just as smart as anywhere else in the country. Crime is low. Of that gang crime that is there, it is of the variety imported from the U.S. along with the guns. And most of that is not in the down town.

how do you get Cambridge, the mission district and Sheepshead Bay Brooklyn in the same list?

i know people there and drive there once a month or so. it sucks. the schools suck. parts are close to the subway but large parts are a 30 minute walk. the stores within walking distance suck as well. unless you speak russian or chinese you won't fit in.

with amazon prime it's cheaper to live in a car dependent area, drive to work, buy from amazon and drive grocery shopping once a week

The math doesn't have to be flaky, he just may not be factoring in all of the variables.

The fact is that humans are better at this by evaluating it ourselves because we can work out all these variables with our brains a lot better than any program can. We're very good at figuring out what we like and what we don't like. You might say we have instincts for that.

That said, the math may expose places that he might want to target for further investigation. I'd say this would be a worthwhile exercise if he us

That said, the math may expose places that he might want to target for further investigation. I'd say this would be a worthwhile exercise if he uses the as a way of narrowing down a list, and/or perhaps applying the math more generally to a huge super set of obscure locations to generate some locations he hadn't considered previously for inclusion in his evaluation.

Using math like that may not be perfect, but it allows his search space to be every single city in the whole country, converting it into a sorted list. Then next step is to search for information about any of the variables you couldn't automatically account for on the top several items, and for factors that might be unique to the city. Only then would one visit or move in.

Now, some would say all this is a lot of unnecessary trouble, but think about this: where you live is one of the major decisions in your

To be honest, I was expecting something a smaller, affordable Midwest town or something, but it the highest scoring areas were usually just outside of major downtowns.

Yeah, uh, no. In Midwest towns there's an expectation that you have a vehicle because rarely does the town you live in have all you need. Further, the cost of sidewalks is shifted mostly (if not entirely) on the property owner including things like snow removal (not that many people actually follow that)--because taxpayers don't want to have

It may be affordable and walkable, but would you actually want to walk there?

I've always been weary when I took the RTD to the light rail station there at night and the crime statistics tend to bear this caution [spotcrime.com]. Not to say it might not be some sort of up-and-coming neighborhood (don't live in Denver now so my information is a few years old), but historically, that's been fits-and-starts for that area with little progress since the '90s even though downtown was getting all the ball-park redevelopment...

On the other hand Capitol Hill in Seattle doesn't seem nearly as bad. It isn't the greatest neighborhood and although I don't generally wander around that area at night when I travel to Seattle (although I did occasionally drive by there because I know someone who used to have a restaurant there). I wonder how much crime got factored into this so-called walkability "math"... I'm a bit suspect of this WalkScore anyhow as it yields very unexpected ratings for the last few places that I lived...

Five points is NOT a place I would look to live, even today... downtown Denver is booming all over but not as much there at all. Closer to Union Station is where all the action (and walkability) is at.

I have attempted to use Walkscore for this very task: moving to an area, sight unseen. I have found it incredibly lacking. It computes "nearby" locations using either as-the-crow-flies distance or an automobile driving map; I'm not sure which. While this might be acceptable in a gridded downtown area, which has ample sidewalks and pedestrian signals, it does not work everywhere.

Here in the deep South, we tend to place multi-lane, high-speed highways everywhere and anywhere we can. These roadways are nearly

Not if you include crime in the walkability score. Consider Marseille or southern Italy. Perhaps you don't know that Kosovo is in Europe. Although the OP left it off, crime is a must consider factor in walkability.

Have you ever actually been to Kosovo? You can safely walk around Prishtina, Pejë or Prizren at night. Albanians have a café culture, so even at fairly late hours there will be plenty of people in the street around you, you aren't all alone and easy pickings for some thug.

The topography of the zoning and building layout matter. Consider two neighborhoods which are 2-mile squares in shape. One neighborhood has a commercial district in a single corner, the other neighborhood has two such districts at opposite corners of its square. The second neighborhood may score twice as walkable, but what matters to the home's individual walkableness is how close it sits to one of those districts, since you presumably want to walk to the store and to an office in a corner that has a comme

Since he was looking affordable to him and basing that on residents income small towns in the midwest aren't likely to hit the radar. Those places are cheap because the locals don't make much money and therefore can't afford to pay much.As for walkability, traffic might be low in a place like that but things are actually more spread out. The denser the population the more walkable somewhere becomes. The reason is simple, in a dense city there are enough people to support a walgreens and mcdonalds every few

I picked where to live over 30 years ago using math, Venn Diagrams and weighted analysis. Decades later I'm very happy where I am. Works for those of us of the mathematical, logical, engineering bend. Emoties could learn a lot from math.

Thank goodness you Americans can carry guns so you're safer. We can't carry guns up here and, hey that's funny, I can walk almost anywhere here any time.

Actually, the areas with the most relaxed gun laws in the US, *are* the safest. And those areas where they put the most restrictions on guns, have the highest crime rates. It has been a pretty undeniable trend wherever it can be observed. And when the courts force certain cities or states to relax their gun restrictions, crime falls, dramatically.

Also, countries with higher gun ownership rates than the US, have lower crime than many nations where guns are completely banned. In the UK, you're more likely to be stabbed than shot, but that doesn't make it a nice safe place.

Of the top ten States in terms of strictest gun laws, 7 have the lowest number of gun deaths. Transport of guns across state lines hamper efforts. Most if not all illegal guns in Canada, guns in the hands of criminals, come from America.

the areas in the USA with high gun ownership have the least crime, meanwhile cities where they are heavily controlled or forbidden have violent subcultures that commit most the crime. Where I live, guns and ammo are sold over the counter but the crime rate is very low. Meanwhile, in Chicago less than ten miles away.....

Of the top ten States in terms of strictest gun laws, 7 have the lowest number of gun deaths.

You know when gun deaths were really low? Before guns were invented. The homicide rate, however, was about an order of magnitude higher than it is now.

Your statement is true, but utterly irrelevant to the question of where the safest places to live are. Does it matter what weapon is used to kill you? Or rob you or, rape you, or... Of course it doesn't. You have fallen victim to (or else are disingenuously pushing, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you're foolish, not malicious) to a ve

Of the top ten States in terms of strictest gun laws, 7 have the lowest number of gun deaths.

You know when gun deaths were really low? Before guns were invented. The homicide rate, however, was about an order of magnitude higher than it is now.

Your statement is true, but utterly irrelevant to the question of where the safest places to live are. Does it matter what weapon is used to kill you? Or rob you or, rape you, or... Of course it doesn't. You have fallen victim to (or else are disingenuously pushing, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you're foolish, not malicious) to a very clever stratagem pushed by advocates of gun control: Focusing only on gun crime and ignoring other crime.

The statistic that matters isn't the number of gun deaths, it's the number of homicides, assaults, rapes, robberies, etc., total. And on any one of those scales, those states with strict gun laws don't do particularly well. To make them look good you have to do exactly what you did: arbitrarily exclude much of the violence.

Maybe because places that don't have a problem with crime in the first place don't care about making laws to restrict access to weapons?

Correlation does not prove causation. You are suggesting that gun ownership leads to lower crime rates and citizen safety. It's just as likely that highly dangerous regions of the US put in place gun restrictions in an effort to do something about the crime rate.

Also your comment about the UK is completely throwaway; this is very common US argumentation. 'The US is the best place and any other place's experience is irrelevant.' WTF "that doesn't make it a nice safe place"?? Actually the UK is both nice

Nope. Not forced "validation", just "forced" tolerance. That is a manifestation of our founding ideals regarding religion. We are simply not a Sharia Law nation. Even our devout founding fathers knew the dangers of mixing church and state.

Religious wars and repression weren't such a distant memory for them.

If you can't handle all of this, I suggest moving to Iran where you will find like minded people.

Thank goodness you Americans can carry guns so you're safer. We can't carry guns up here and, hey that's funny, I can walk almost anywhere here any time.

Actually, the areas with the most relaxed gun laws in the US, *are* the safest. And those areas where they put the most restrictions on guns, have the highest crime rates. It has been a pretty undeniable trend wherever it can be observed. And when the courts force certain cities or states to relax their gun restrictions, crime falls, dramatically.

Also, countries with higher gun ownership rates than the US, have lower crime than many nations where guns are completely banned. In the UK, you're more likely to be stabbed than shot, but that doesn't make it a nice safe place.

But which is the cause, and which is the effect? (Yes, even when one comes after another there can be non-obvious cause and effect. Think about it for a moment.)

It's something of a prisoner's dilemma. I'm feeling quite safe here in Norway without a gun because getting hold of illegal guns is fairly hard. Not extremely hard, but enough that your petty pickpocket/mugger/burglar won't bother. And your victims won't have a gun so it's overkill to rob people at gun point, it just attracts a whole lot of unwanted attention and will put you in jail for longer.

Now if criminals had to assume the regular victim might have a gun he'd have to arm himself, no good robbing your

You don't sound like someone that's ever had to live in a place where drive by shootings are problem. Clearly you are not because you don't acknowledge the problem of violent crime in general. You clearly have no clue what else people in poor violent neighborhoods have to deal with.

It's not just the guns.

You think you can be smug because "there are no guns" but the guns really have nothing to do with it.

The real reason you can be smug is that you don't live in some festering ghetto. Your silver spoon protec

I'm actually a victim of a violent crime and had to have reconstructive surgery on my cheek but way to be completely off the mark. I'm thankful that it was just a punch and not a bullet. I've also been held up at knife-point before by a couple of ~10 year old kids but that was more funny than scary. I'll take my chances against a fist or knife any day over a gun.

and the highest per capita gun ownership is in low crime areas in the USA. The big cities severely restrict or forbid gun ownship (like Chicago which was forced to allow it, so immediately installed a permit system that doesn't issue), but they have the high gun crime.

the areas with the highest per-capita gun ownership rates in the USA do have very low crime, on par or better than your europeans cities. But in the inner cities where per capita gun ownship is low, there are a couple violent subcultures committing most the violent crime.

" If guns are restricted, *everyone* has less access to them, including the bad guys."

What you refuse to accept is that "less" access to guns by bad guys is still ample for them to shoot good defenceless people. What you also refuse to accept is that bad guys may be armed by other-than-guns and still threaten the lives of good defenceless people.

What you refuse to accept is that "less" access to guns by bad guys is still ample for them to shoot good defenseless people.

I second this.

Don't forget the (logical, inevitable) outcome of selective criminals-only carry in places with steep and escalating gun crime penalties: defenseless bystanders and potential witnesses -- even those who do not interfere with the perpetrators' exit -- are more likely to be pursued and targeted lethally.

Logic fails you anti-gun nuts. Toronto only has 2,000 gang members, about 1/35th the number of Chicago which is city the same size, but they still manage over 160 gun deaths per year by those gang members.

Of course we will live with it - But don't expect us to accept nonsense like "We'll change our mind once a gun is pointed at us." We don't live in gun-crazy nations, so we're not going to experience that.

We're also fellow humans, so we're allowed to comment on the insanity of it all when nutballs gun down your children and you just shrug and say "Oh well, nothing we can do. Guess we better get more guns then."

It's a cultural difference, just like we don't believe in curtailing freedom of speech as you do in Canada.

Look: if we completely eliminated access to firearms in both the US and Canada, I practically *guarantee* you that the US would still have a substantially higher murder and other violent crimes rate.

The US was founded by a bunch of dissident malcontents (mostly Protestants, with a fetish for working) and we have had a cultural hardon for firearms ever since our ancestors used them to ethnically cleanse

It's not small minded. It actually makes a remarkable amount of sense. Foreign nationals that like to lecture anyone else are like the GOP crowd that thought they could mold Iraq into a western style democracy while ignoring the fact that the Iraqis are a distinct people with their own history and characteristics.

Bleeding heart liberals and Eurotrash that think that they can just impose foreign ideas on the US are just like that.

Take a good long look in the mirror. The face that should be looking back at yo

Cities Suck.. you take your life in your hands for what? a Museum you will never visit?.. Close Proximity to clubs with glory holes? come on man.. serious?

IMHO, cities suck because of traffic sucking hours of your life, pollution, limited recreation opportunities, and prices an order of magnitude higher than less desirable cities nearby which require sacrificing decades of your life under florescent lights, to pay for... Never mind the noise, the cramped conditions, and the

Except for all those many cities where the public transportation is awful and useless

Transportation cost is huge, 2nd to housing cost,

A vastly, ridiculously distant second... Or more likely, third behind health insurance for most people. Commuting 100+ miles to/from work, I ballparked my fuel bill as under $250/month. Liability insurance is cheap, as is the price of a decent used car, and parts/maintenance on older vehicles, too.

My personal criteria for home location is pretty much Climate, and Volcanic Activity. YMMV.OTOH, in the part of San Francisco I'm in right now, my elderly neighbors are safe on the streets 24/7, I guess the shmoogs don't want to hike up the hill or something. One evening I noticed a neighbor had left the car windows open with four sacks of groceries in the back seat, all still there at 0800 the next morning. Looked like two hundred dollars' worth, at least.We are under-supplied with dirtbags here, that's al

Yes, those are likely what we'd call Section 8 or subsidized housing. That's there to allow minimum wage workers to live close enough to their low paying jobs so they they can wait on the rich people who live in the area. The high crime rate in those areas is not necessarily guaranteed, but given the socio-economic realities, is quite probable.

Math might be a way to find the real gems in the rough, but let's be honest with ourselves and admit that unless the math has a lot of data and a very finely tuned

it isn't going to expose value that millions of people haven't been able to find on their own via trial and error.

But it might make such errors less likely to have catastrophic consequences. Having an SO who moves every two years can't be good for your own resume, for instance, and it disrupts a child's socialization with peers.

I'd like to live in the Sierra Nevadas in Spain, can someone explain to me why there are entire cities in the foothills that are not only completely deserted, they have never been occupied (or why the highest road in Europe still doesn't go anywhere?)?

Top Gear series 20 episode 3. They converted a ghost town into a grand prix circuit. After having a drag race on an abandoned 12,000 foot runway. And taking the aforementioned road to nowhere - actually, to 30 feet from the summit of a mountain. All during a race from Gibraltar to Madrid in three supercars.